Chapter 9: Dropping Anchors 159
Sometimes, creating a chain of anchors can be useful. Each link in the chain
acts as a stimulus to the next link, building up a sequence of states. For
example, think of how an opera singer prepares for a major performance, as
they pace themselves through a sequence of states until they’re mentally set,
focused, and ready to go on stage.You can design a chain of anchors as the route to get into a desired state
when the shift from the current state to the desired positive state is too great
a leap in one go.For example, your current problem state may be Anger and your desired
state Relaxed. This transition is quite a jump to achieve in one go. However,
you can first step from Anger to Worry, because of the overlap in these
states. Your second step can then be from Worry to Curiosity, because again
similarities exist between the two states. The final step can be from Curiosity
to Relaxed (see Figure 9-2). To move from step to step you need to fire off a
new anchor – as explained in the earlier section ‘Setting an anchor and build-
ing yourself a resourceful state’ – until you reach your desired state.Figure 9-2:
Transitioning
through a
chain of
anchors.
Anger Worry Curiosity CalmCuriosity and confusion are useful interim steps to achieve a change in state
for yourself and others: they can often defuse emotionally charged situations.When Kate worked on a consultancy project, one of the senior managers
frequently interrupted highly charged conference calls with the statement:
‘I’m confused here. Would someone please just go over that again for me.’ It
worked every time, as a perfect strategy to defuse the situation and raise new
ideas. One person saying that he was confused made everybody else slow
down and question their own understanding.Deploying stage anchors
For many people, public speaking represents speaking under severe pres-
sure. A number of studies, borne out by our own experiences with clients,
demonstrate that some people would actually rather die than stand up and